What is the best way to set up a blog / website with Tiddlywiki?

[Sapphireslinger]

I have no coding skills. I can copy and paste into terminal.

Are these still the two best tutorials on setting up a blog with Tiddlywiki? Are there any other tutorials?

https://www.didaxy.com/exporting-static-sites-from-tiddlywiki

https://nesslabs.com/digital-garden-tiddlywiki

Also I need tabs in a blog. Didaxy said:

"Only some of Tiddlywiki's functionality translates well into static content at the moment. Basic transclusion works great, but the "tabs" macro doesn't work at all, for example. If these features turn out to be important, they should be fairly straightforward (though not necessarily easy) to implement."

[Sapphireslinger]

Tried Didaxy's tutorial today.

Successfully installed node.js on my Linux Mint desktop using Solution 1 on https://blog.softhints.com/install-node-js-linux-mint/

Was not sure which directory to put the build.sh file into.

Pasting "./build.sh" in terminal didn't seem to do anything, even though made sure I was in directory containing the file.

However disregarding that shortcut, I was able to get to the end of Part 1 and see a static site with the index tiddler.

I bogged down in Part 2

Could not get static site to show up again, just looked like a directory.

Maybe because in Part 1 I ran these commands (npm install -g http-server, http server) from inside the Wiki/output/static folder? I did not know what directory to run those commands in.

Had to guess when to open new terminal windows for different steps.

[Sapphireslinger]

OK, I re-did all those steps, still no luck with the build.sh, BUT I am successfully into Part 2 with the static site showing up.

continuing on...

[Sapphireslinger]

In Part 2, succeeded in getting the header and footer content to show up.

Unfortunately the long river of code which is the contents of $:/SapphireslingerWiki/templates/static.template.css also shows up.

Will re-try tomorrow.

[TW Tones]

Sapphireslinger,

It looks to me is not too many people are following the same path as you, and thus not providing advice.

From my perspective designing a blog, the main work is the layout and features. To me the final effort is exporting it as a static site simply to increase the searchability, or landing page load speed, thus I would leave it to the end. In this forum there are many posts in the last year to 6 months ago on exporting static sites. I started to build a blog here but personally to publish it I would like all the links on the static pages point to the interactive wiki tiddler. If you do this and make sure you have a splash screen while loading the full wiki, visitors will on the first interaction (link) load the full wiki where they can benefit from all the interactive features tiddlywiki has to offer, rather than you needing to systematically make the interactive features work on static pages. Static pages are by definition the poor cousins of an interactive wiki.

Regards

Tones

[Donald Coates]

Hello.  I did this with my blog at https://blog.digitalap3.com .  I am a respiratory therapist by trade and with covid the blog is one of many projects I have let go of for now.

I have no coding skills. I can copy and paste into terminal.

Unless you are doing this as a learning experience, I would suggest a more production ready static site generator.  There are hundreds of them like Jekyll and Ghost.  If this is a learning project without the need for something quick then by all means go for it.  I learned a lot so far but I did start with a medium level understanding of shell scripting, HTML and CSS.  Honestly it would benefit you to start with thoroughly learning the basics of HTML and CSS first.

 

Are these still the two best tutorials on setting up a blog with Tiddlywiki? Are there any other tutorials?

https://www.didaxy.com/exporting-static-sites-from-tiddlywiki

https://nesslabs.com/digital-garden-tiddlywiki

I'm not familiar with nesslabs but the didaxy tutorial pointed me in the right directions as far as how to get started finding and manipulating the templates.

 

Also I need tabs in a blog. Didaxy said:

"Only some of Tiddlywiki's functionality translates well into static content at the moment. Basic transclusion works great, but the "tabs" macro doesn't work at all, for example. If these features turn out to be important, they should be fairly straightforward (though not necessarily easy) to implement."

A feature such as tabs relies on javascript, which TiddlyWiki is built on.  Since you are basically transferring from the *dynamic* language of javascript to the *static* language of HTML and CSS you lose that functionality.  And it can be very challenging to put javascript in your templates because of the security features Tiddlywiki has in place.   It is possible as you can see from the picture galleries in my blog, but without some knowledge of the DOM, HTML, and CSS you are going to be hitting some real walls.

I would suggest starting with an easier solution made specifically for generating static sites then taking your time doing it with TW.  The problem I always have run into in situations like this is that I get so caught up in the process of setting it up that when it is working I have no energy left for actually writing something!

Best of luck!!

[Tasha]

TW Tones,

 to publish it I would like all the links on the static pages point to the interactive wiki tiddler.

 Are you saying I should have just ONE static page, the home page?

[Tasha]

TW Tones,

Static pages are by definition the poor cousins of an interactive wiki.

 You have taken a huge weight off. I won't bother with static pages then. It would be nice if people could find my site, but I don't want to get bogged down in SEO. Content creation and organization is enough on my plate.

I will still have to learn how to upload my tiddlywiki to github, though.

I did notice that on tiddlywiki blogs I'm always accidentally hitting the back button to navigate and booting myself off the entire site. That would be disconcerting for visitors to my blog.

But on the plus side my blog would be introducing all visitors to the existence of Tiddlywiki.  

Tiddlywiki also makes saving entire sites a one-button dream. I wish all my favourite sites were tiddlywikis so I could save them in case they vanish. HTTrack is sooo hard to figure out.

[Tasha]

Donald Coates,

Thank you! Guess I should stick with a pure Tiddlywiki blog then. Don't want to spend months learning to code before I can blog. Don't want to get into static site generators if Tiddlywiki can do just as well and is what I am already using to organize my thoughts. Like you say writing should not be unduly eclipsed by setting stuff up. I suspect it is going to get eclipsed anyway with just Tiddlywiki.

What attracted me to using Tiddlywiki both as a note-taker and to blog, is its self-containment, transparency and mobility. I don't feel like I'm juggling and dropping a bunch of pieces everywhere.

As a note-taker, Tiddlywiki can stay completely in my phone, hopefully no exposure to the cloud. As a note-taker, I can go completely behind its curtain to change whatever I need.

As a blog, Tiddlywiki can be tweaked and molded on my phone or desktop all I want before I ever connect to the web to update it. Very reassuring to any perfectionist tendencies. (By contrast, my present blog on Blogger has me coding and creating pretty much all on the net within their blogging environment. It is such a daunting threshold to me to log in and create there in a hard to tweak format that I hardly do it as much as 2 or 3 times a year any more.  )

As a blog, presumably Tiddlywiki will be only a single file with an ancillary images folder that I can push with a click to anywhere on the net. It feels safely mobile. No wondering how in the world I would ever recreate my blog from Blogger. If I lose a home on one platform, it is a simple matter of uploading my one tiddlywiki file and image folder to a new address. The same uploading process I will have memorized from having done it every time I post to my blog, which will hopefully have become every day from Tiddlywiki's ease of use and creation.

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[Charlie Veniot]

G'day,

If I were to create a blog with TiddlyWiki, I think I would be adopting the "architecture" of my personal website à la TiddlyWiki.

• auto-hide the TiddlyWiki sidebar because it is, to me, strictly for TiddlyWiki users (i.e. overkill for blog readers)
• setup nice side bar on the left for static stuff
  • maybe some things that open modal windows
  • never anything that changes anything in the story river
• never show anything other than the "Home" tiddler in the story river
• show content only in the "Home" tiddler (i.e. it is the window to everything)
  • to keep the amount of content manageable
    • use Details and/or reveal widgets
    • make heavy use of modals
  • so everything designed so that the user never needs to use the browser "back" button

Just throwing all of that out there in case it helps you dream up some interesting ideas.

Cheers !

[Sapphireslinger]

Charlie Veniot,

Thank you for pointing out the Detail Widget. After visiting your website, I began using it and it is making a big difference in my note-taking Tiddlywiki, so it will probably be good for my blog Tiddlywiki as well.

Your suggestion to show content only on the "Home" tiddler as the window to everything "so that user never needs to use the browser back button" felt like it would run counter to a desire to de-clutter my home page but it is an extremely intriguing idea that I keep thinking about and will try out.

[Sapphireslinger]

Charlie Veniot,

What are modals and modal windows?

[David Gifford]

https://tiddlywiki.com/#Modals

[Charlie Veniot]

G'day g'day,

Thomas Elmiger's DetailsWidget plugin brings me immense Zen.

I have a cognitive disability, and I suffer extreme anxiety when things aren't where I expect them to be.  So when things move out of view (the information in front of me is no longer "in context"), I immediately get overwhelmed by the flood of cognitive processing (I hyperfocus on details of everything I see in front of me and what is no longer in front of me.)

It is pretty exhausting.  I picture my brain having a thousand hamsters in hamster wheels spinning furiously all of the time.

I imagine everybody is like that, just not to a degree of serious dysfunction.  Still, I tend to think that even "normal" folk do better with reveals of extra details without leaving the visual/cognitive/etc. contextual whereabouts of the moment.

So things like the Details Widget, Modals (thanks for the link, David!!!), opening a tiddler in a new window, tabs, reveal widgets... They are all wonderful things that cognitively help me out something silly.

All of that said, it is a little fascinating to me that "back" button causes me anxiety, but close button on a Modal doesn't.  Not enough hours in a day for me to figure that psychological trinket in the Cracker Jacks box ...

[Charlie Veniot]

Just as another example of a tiddler with ability to show different content:   Facts Explorer tiddler in my "Tifoist TW5 BIS Prototype 2" project.  Content changes based on the search criteria.

• ASIDE: much of prototype 1 stuff is likely broken in prototype 2 as I refactor things.

Eventually, everything will be working out of one "Home" tiddler, same as how my online curriculum vitae works.

On Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 8:55:42 AM UTC-4 Sapphireslinger wrote: